


soft reverie

by Crykea



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Concussions, Dissociation, Gen, Ghosts, Hurt Klaus Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves Gets A Hug, Klaus' powers, No Apocalypse, No Incest, Panic Attacks, Post-Concussion Syndrome, Post-Season/Series 01, Protective Siblings, i literally wrote this while in class, mans was thrown into a wall and then hit his head hard enough to die, unreality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 16:46:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29317320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crykea/pseuds/Crykea
Summary: After the apocalypse has been averted, Klaus is still having troubles but they're easy enough to deal with. A foggy memory and a headache here and there are normal things to have after all. But the adrenaline from world-saving has worn off and now it's getting hard to think without his head pounding. Everything is so loud and bright and he can't focus and--
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves & Everyone, Klaus Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 9
Kudos: 195





	soft reverie

**Author's Note:**

> second ever tua fic ayoooo i hope yall enjoy

Klaus’s head is pounding and it’s becoming incredibly difficult for him to focus on anything besides the drilling pain in the back of his skull. He can’t focus. He knows he’s supposed to be paying attention, but there’s a roaring in his ears that sounds like a waterfall? Or a pounding. His head? His head is pounding? His heart is beating? The sound of his heartbeat is rushing in his ears blocking everything else out. 

Blue figures are loitering around the room with their mouths open. His eyes drift amongst them barely landing on their faces before moving on to the next. Something feels weird, but maybe it’s just in his head. His head hurts. Distantly, he wishes that his siblings would let him have some painkillers. Even Ibuprofen is kept on mom and given out only after a quick check up, which he has been avoiding. It may suck that his family doesn’t trust him around something as small as that, but he’d be wrong if he said the mistrust wasn’t necessary. He can deal with a little headache on his own. The blue figures have beady eyes that dart around, not focusing on much. THey might be making sounds, but Klaus can’t be sure. All he can hear is his heart beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat--

He reclines back slightly, unable to let his eyes drift closed fully. His elbows rest against the cool wood of the bar sending a brief spike of dull pain through him. Right, he forgot that he had bruises there. From? Bruises from-- what is going on. Everything is sort of foggy and hard to focus on. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say he was on drugs, but Five won’t even let him have ibuprofen for his headache. The pain from his head is dull and aching, arching out from the place he hit it on the floor of the dance floor the other day. He hadn’t thought much of it in the past few days. Apocalypse. Head Injury. Hard to keep up.

His head lolls back painfully tugging on the back of his neck. As his eyes drift upward, away from the wandering blue figures, he comes face to face with someone. Blue. One of the blue ones? Their mouth is moving and their eyes are wide in worry. Worry? Why is Ben worried? Ben?

“Ben?”

“--2019-- Hey, Klaus, yeah. Welcome to the party where’ve you been.”

“Sitting here”

“You were lost in your head there, buddy. Everyone’s worried.”

“Wha…?” Klaus lets his head fall forward again to take in the room. It feels as though his eyesight lags just a few seconds behind the trajectory of his head and he feels rather than hears himself groan into the hand that he’s brought up to clutch at his head. The blue figures are still wandering around but they’re flickering slightly in a way he can’t place. Amongst them, are non-blue people who are looking at him strangely. One of them is standing in front of him. Short. Klaus can still see over her head even though she’s standing and he’s sitting. Sitting? At the bar. He’s sitting on a stool at the bar with his bruised elbows resting against the wood and a headache pounding down his spine. Weird. Why would they call it a headache if he had it not in his head? It’s in his head. Just not  _ only _ in his head. He brings his hand up again to probe at the spot where the floor hit him. He hisses. He hit the floor, the floor couldn’t have hit him. 

His sister’s mouth is moving too but no sound is coming out besides the beat of his heart in his ears. This is important he needs to pay attention. He blinks his eyes forcefully a couple of times, shaking his head to try to clear some of the foggy feeling sitting at the edges of his vision. The palm of his hand raps a couple of times on his forehead before a small warm hand-- not his-- takes it and holds it in theirs. He opens his eyes again. When did he close them? He should do that more often the dark is nice.

“Oh. Hi, Vanya. What brings you...here” His voice sounds faint when he speaks and he doesn’t know if it actually comes out like that or if his hearing is just fucked? Maybe it’s both. He misses what she says in response. “Sorry, I can’t hear you over all this… noise? Noise? Um.”

Vanya pulls his arm toward her, taking his other one too to pull him to his feet. He staggers up to meet her

“--s, hey, I need you to take a deep breath for me, okay?” Her voice is louder than it used to be a week ago. He smiles and nods, wincing immediately at how he feels his brain knock around with the movement. Breath. He can breathe. Has he not been breathing? That would be bad. “Here, feel my heartbeat? I know it’s, um, loud right now, but just focus on my breathing okay? Match to me”

“T’s not loud, I don’t know why I said that. Quiet. My heartbeat is really noisy. Not too bad. No need to worry. I can deal with it.” It must be the wrong thing to say because Vanya’s brow furrows.

“...Okay.” She says slowly, chewing on the word. “Okay, that’s...okay. Can you still match my breathing though? For me?”

“Oh, sure.” He focuses on the feeling of his hands on her shirt. The cotton is soft. Her chest is rising and falling at a snails pace. How is she not passing out from breathing so slowly? Klaus tries to match her once and nearly chokes on his own air. But he has to remember to breath. He’s matching Vanya. His hand on her dress shirt keep pulsing with colour. He stares, watching the electric blue run up his veins, and back down, and dance around his fingertips, and highlight the bones of his wrist, and--

“Just match my breathing, Klaus. There you go.” He draws his eyes away from his hands to look at Vanya. She looks tense in the way that it’s obvious how much she’s trying to hide how tense she is. “Is touch alright for you?” He cocks his head to the side not quite understanding. Of course, it’s fine.

“Use your words, Klaus.” Ben’s voice rings from beside him. He forgot Ben was here.

“I forgot you were here.”

“I know, that’s okay. Vanya is wondering if you’d be alright with someone touching you right now or if that wouldn’t help.”

“Oh.” Klaus’s gaze slowly drifts back to stare at Vanya. Her eyes are nice and warm and brown. “Yeah, that’s okay.”

“Yeah?” She asks.

“Yeah.” He responds.

“I’m gonna keep doing the breathing stuff with you, so is a hug from Allison okay?”

“Alli?”

“Yeah she’s sitting right there, Klaus, can you see her?” Ben points just behind Vanya to the dissipating crowd of blue and not blue and blue and not blue and blue and not blue and blue and

He nods. Years and also no time at all passes before Allison is suddenly sitting on the ground in their little crowd. 

“When did we get on the ground?” He asks dreamily, eyes wandering fleetingly over the maze of curls on his sister’s head. He keeps getting lost in them. His heart is quieter in his head and he’s become aware of Vanya’s thumb rubbing circles into his hand. “I think I’m a little cold.” Allison smiles encouragingly and wraps her arms around him from where she’s sitting beside him. Her sleeves are short and he focuses as hard as he can on the warm feeling of her skin. Focusing hurts more. He hisses and drags one hand away from Vanya to clutch at his head once more.

“Does his head hurt?” one of the not blue people behind Vanya says. “Maybe that’s what’s causing, uh, this.” The crowd of blue people has turned mostly not blue except for Ben who has moved across the room to herd some of the remaining people out of the room. All of a sudden, it’s much quieter. Klaus hears himself take another deep breath to match Vanya’s. His heart is quieter. The rushing sound is gone with the crowd that Ben hurries out of the room. His head hurts.

His head hurts.

He nods.

“What is it, Klaus?” Vanya asks gently after seeing him nod. Maybe some time has passed between Luther saying that and him nodding. Everything is still a bit fuzzy.

“Uh, headache,” Klaus says, voice still quieter than normal. Raising his volume makes his head hurt. “Hit my head really hard a couple of days ago. Headache ever since.”

“Oh for the love of--” A sudden burst of blinding blue in front of him makes him wince. Allison’s warm hands move away from the hug to instead look at his head for a wound. Five grumbles in front of him, asking him a flurry of questions that ache. “You absolute moron. We agreed to the whole 'no secrets' thing, did we not? I’d think it would be prevalent to know that you brained yourself bad enough to get a fucking concussion. We could’ve helped you before all this,” he gestures to the now mostly empty room “happened.”

“When did you hit your head?”

“Oh, Diego’s here too.”

“Been here the whole time, bro.”

“Forgot”

“When did you hit your head,” Diego asks again.

Klaus brings one normal coloured hand up to point at Luther. “You were there. Speaking hurts my brain. You say it.”

“Luther was…” Five turns away from Klaus for a second to stare at his other brother, a dark question in his eyes.

“I was? I don’t… remember you being anywhere with me that would make--”

“The rave, Luther.” Ben’s impatient voice cuts in. Klaus waves at him happily now that he’s returned from getting rid of the ghosts. “Klaus, they can’t see me anymore, you have to repeat that.” Ben’s voice is quieter than usual.

“Oh.” Klaus furrows his brow. “Can you repeat that?”

“The rave, Luther.”

“The rave, Luther,” Klaus says, eyes still on Ben’s face.

“And before when Luther was drinking.” Klaus nods. “You have to say that one too, Klaus”

“And before when Luther was drinking.” He repeats before closing his eyes and leaning his head back into the warmth of Allison’s hand which has found the bump on the back of his head and is gently probing at it, making sharp pain flash through his head. “I don’t want to talk anymore, please, I have a headache.”

Five’s calculating gaze turns on him and melts ever so slightly into a more gentle one. “I will leave this for  _ now _ , but this is a discussion point for later. I’m very curious as to how this happened--” he cuts a cold glare Luther’s way, “but for now, I think we should get Grace to check you out. I don’t have to be a medical professional to guess that you’ve fucked up your brain and gotten yourself a concussion. Can you stand on your own?”

  
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll just grab him.” Diego cuts in, quietly making his way over before Klaus has even fully processed Five’s question. “Let’s get you to mom. She’ll be able to help, alright, bro?” Klaus opened his eyes, to give a tired thumbs up at his brother. He tried to make it easier for Diego to pick him up, but judging by Diego’s grunt, he probably just made it worse. At least it was quiet. His head hurt. And honestly? He was  _ exhausted _ . Vanya kept her hold on his hand as they walked to the infirmary.

**Author's Note:**

> find my on tumblr at @crykea


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